Mitchell Van Morgan: The Four Islands
Mitchell Van Morgan: The Four Islands Known in Japan as Mitchell Van Morgan: The Four Elemental Islands (Japanese; ミッチェル・ヴァン・モルガン：4つのエレメンタル諸島, Hepburn; Mitcheru vu~an Morugan: 4Tsu no erementaru shotō) is an action-adventure video game developed by Grezzo, published by THQ and distributed by Nickelodeon Interactive Games for the Nintendo 3DS which serves as the handheld installment in Mitchell Van Morgan video game series. The game was released on December 2, 2011, in North America; on September 28, 2011, in Japan; and on October 19, 2011, in Europe and Australia. The cartridge contains a modified port of Mitchell Van Morgan 64 (originally based on sprites from The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords) and it features multiplayer alot similar to the Nintendo 64 title. The game itself was followed in 2015 by a Wii U sequel, Mitchell Van Morgan: The Four Islands Adventures, which continued the story and expanded upon the gameplay concepts while including a single-player adventure. It was re-released on the Nintendo 3ds eShop for a limited time from January 31 to February 2, 2012. Gameplay The gameplay of Mitchell Van Morgn: The Four Islands is played from a Top-down perspective, with Mitchell exploring large environments in an attempt to find all the stolen maids of the Four Islands. Four Islands is the multiplayer portion of the cartridge. Four Swords features gameplay similar to The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, with a focus on multi-player; in it, two to four players must cooperatively work through a series of puzzle-laden dungeons, while competing to collect mvm coins. The player with the most mvm coins at the end of a level wins a special prize, though all mvm coins are shared together in the long run. All players are given respective colors – player one is green, player two is red, player three is blue, and player four is purple. Once all players are connected, player one chooses one of the four stages available to play on. All dungeons are randomized before play. The dungeons have three levels to them, with a portal at the end of each level; the first to reach it will be rewarded with a Heart Container, an item that increases the player's health meter. The third level is not a traditional dungeon, but rather a boss battle. Once defeated, they will return to the hub area. Unlike in A Link to the Past where Link may have an inventory of items he has collected, Four Swords only allows a player to have one item at any given time, switching them out at item pedestals. An original item called the Gnat Hat appears, causing Link to shrink and be able to access areas he could not normally reach. This was featured in a later game The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap, though it was in the form of a talking hat named Ezlo. Somet is transferred between games. Another link between the two games is that, when both are beaten, players may access a dungeon called "Palace of the Four Sword" in A Link to the Past. Character Gameplay The Character gameplay is somewhat similar between The Legend of Zelda: The Four Sowrds and Conker's Pocket Tales which makes it actually a 16-bit version of Mitchell Van Morgn 64. *Mitchell: **Tpriplicate-Mitchell can create two copies of himself that fight alongside him. **Sonicspeed-Mitchell can run like the wind in supersonic speed. *Gavin: ** **Gavie Saber repell-Gavin's trusty lightsaber can repel against any evil forces *Carolyn: **Carolyn Bow- ** *Jennifer: ** ** *Martin: ** **Martin's Strength-Martin can pick up or push the heaviest boulders. *David: ** ** *Nicholas: ** ** Plot The game is set before the events of Mitchell Van Morgan 64. The prologue shows Mitchell and his buddies approaching in a middle of four tropical islands that holds all elemental boundaries, called the Four Islands. After Zelda explains its history and the creature sealed within it, the creature named Vaati breaks free, capturing Zelda to marry her. Mitchell is encountered by four elemental pros who instruct Mitchell and the others to bring their elemental skills out to the test. Link then pulls the Four Sword out, inadvertently creating three copies of himself that fight alongside him. As the game begins, the four Links are tasked with finding four Great Fairies, who together will grant them access to Vaati's palace. After finding the four Great Fairies and entering the palace the Links battle Vaati. After Vaati is thoroughly weakened, he is trapped in the Four Sword. Mitchell and the others then return back to Raleighopolis. Development The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past & Four Swords was a collaborative development effort between Nintendo and Capcom, the process supervised by Minoru Narita, Yoichi Yamada, Takashi Tezuka and Yoshikazu Yamashita from Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and Development. The A Link to the Past portion re-used the art assets from the Super Nintendo Entertainment System version. Alterations include tweaks to item locations to prevent exploiting the game, a reduction of the viewable playing area, and the inclusion of voice samples from Ocarina of Time. Capcom had begun development of The Legend of Zelda: The Minish Cap in 2001, but temporarily suspended it to free up resources of the Four Swords multi-player component. The company designed the multi-player portion to force cooperation between players in order to progress. The developers designed the levels to adjust the puzzles to the number of players participating; if two or four players are connected, then a puzzle will require two and four characters, respectively, to complete it. Four Swords differs graphically from the other portion and features a style similar to The Wind Waker, which was released around the same time. Though Four Swords was not initially planned as the first title in a subseries, the story, intended to be the earliest in the series' chronology at the time of its release, was already considered to influence future games. Promotion and release The game was first revealed at E3 2002 by series developer Shigeru Miyamoto, who demonstrated the multi-player mode along with Capcom's Yoshiki Okamoto, Namco Bandai's (formerly Namco) Kaneto Shiozawa, and Toshihiro Nagoshi of the now defunct Amusement Vision. It was tentatively titled The Legend of Zelda GBA. In January 2003, the game was on display at the Osaka World Hobby Convention as The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past & Four Swords. It was initially released in North America on December 2, 2002, while it was released the next year in Japan and PAL regions, on March 14 and 28 respectively. Shigeru Miyamoto made a public appearance in Europe on February 21, 2003, in which he signed any Nintendo products. During this appearance, he gave away ten signed copies of A Link to the Past & Four Swords, a month before it came out in the UK. Following the Japanese release, Nintendo displayed the game at TV Kumamoto's , an annual event hosted by the Japanese TV station in Kumamoto Prefecture. In 2006, it was re-released in Nintendo's second run of Player's Choice titles at a reduced price. Reception Pre-release Nintendo World Report's Max Lake called the announcement of a multi-player mode "exciting." In IGN's Best of E3 awards for the Game Boy Advance, they named it the runner-up to Best of Show below Metroid Fusion, calling it a "close one." They ultimately gave it to Fusion due to it not being a remake. They described the multi-player component as resembling Diablo or Gauntlet. They also gave it the award for Biggest Surprise, citing its multi-player mode, calling it a "brilliant addition" and "well worth the price of four Legend of Zelda cartridges." IGN's Craig Harris, in his preview of the game, called the port of A Link to the Past "faithful," though he noted that the ability to control the game will be reduced, due to the lack of two buttons that were both used in the Super NES version. He found the fix to make this work to be adequate, however. He praised the visuals for holding up as well. IGN reported that based on their then new wishlist tool, A Link to the Past & Four Swords was consistently the second most anticipated Game Boy Advance game for the five weeks before its release. Post-release |GSpot = 9.2/10 |IGN = 9.7/10 |GR = 91.70% |MC = 95 }} Since its release, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past & Four Swords has been met with highly positive reception. It holds an aggregate score of 91.70% and 95 at GameRankings and Metacritic respectively. The game was a top seller in Japan following its release. It was the second highest title in number of sales the week of its release, and was number six the following week with 0.04 million units. It sold 1.63 million copies in North America , and 0.29 million in Japan . GamePro s Star Dingo called it a "masterpiece," as well as an "important part of the Grand Renaissance of the Second Dimension." He also praised the overworld for its secrets and "quirky random characters," adding that playing it required patience and exploring. G4TV praised it for being good for anyone anticipating The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. IGN's Craig Harris praised the game, giving the gameplay and lasting appeal perfect scores. They praised both modes' puzzle designs, calling the Super NES game the best 2D video game ever, while praising the replay value for offering unlockables to keep players playing. IGN included it in their Game Boy Advance Holiday Buyers Guide for 2002, calling its inclusion of multiplayer a "big deal" and that it was the most requested Super NES port for the Game Boy Advance. IGN named it the third best Game Boy Advance game, praising the Game Boy Advance for handling the game so well. However, they cited the multi-player component for making the game "truly awesome." They also included it on their list of most-wanted Nintendo DSi Virtual Console games, a hypothetical service that in IGN's view would offer handheld games similar to the Wii's Virtual Console. They once again praised the multi-player mode, questioning why Nintendo has yet to make a follow-up game on the Nintendo DS or DSiWare. Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell praised it, commenting that the port held up over the years, calling it "amazingly deep" and a "gateway drug into the genre." In reviewing the multi-player component, he commented that while it would not be as good as A Link to the Past, it was still remarkable. However, he found fault in the difficulty of finding three other players with Game Boy Advances and copies of the game to play it with. Audiovisuals GamePro s Star Dingo praised the port of A Link to the Past s ability to retain its visuals. He specifically praises its "clean sprites," calling its overworld a "colorful, happy place," sarcastically calling it kiddy. He also questioned how the series' cartoon style was abnormal for the series. While the graphics for A Link to the Past were described as not having changed from the original version in IGN's Craig Harris' review, he praised Four Swords visuals. However, he gave praise to the presentation, praising the Game Boy Advance for recreating the original game. Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell commented that while the graphics do not stand up against fellow Game Boy Advance game Golden Sun, they were a better precursor to the upcoming The Wind Waker than visuals similar to The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, citing its cartoon lining. He also praised it for ensuring that the changes to adjust to the Game Boy Advance's smaller screen were unnoticeable. GamePro s Star Dingo called the sound effects "indelible," though he noted that they were "a little dated." IGN's Craig Harris called The Legend of Zelda s overture "breathtaking," praising the GBA for recreating the soundtrack of the original. He gave praise to the music of the multi-player mode as well, calling the compositions of A Link to the Past s music superior. Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell criticized the audio, calling the sound tinnier than the Super NES version. He also calls Link's yelps "contemptible." Legacy Four Swords was followed in 2004 by a GameCube sequel, Four Swords Adventures, which continued the story and expanded upon the gameplay concepts while including a single-player adventure. In 2005, the Four Swords prequel The Minish Cap for the Game Boy Advance became the next handheld Zelda game, also co-developed with Capcom. A sequel was announced for the Nintendo DS entitled The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords DS. However, this was cancelled and replaced by The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Downloadable Enhanced port This enhanced port of the once multiplayer-only game includes a new single-player mode where players have the ability to control two Mitchell characters and switch between them to progress through the levels. There are also two new areas that can be unlocked: the "Memories of Mitchell Van Morgan", which features levels resembling those in Mitchell Van Morgan (video game), Mitchell Van Morgan 3, and Mitchell Van Morgan 7, and the Mitchell's Legacy, which features harder difficulty. Notes References External links * * s official website|date=20141022140219}} Category:2011 video games Category:Mitchell Van Morgan video games Category:Mitchell Universe games Category:Mitchell platform games Category:Nickelodeon video games Category:Nicktoons video games Category:THQ games Category:Nintendo 3DS games Category:Nintendo 3DS-only games Category:Nintendo 3DS eShop games Category:Top-down video games Category:Cooperative video games Category:Multiplayer and single-player video games Category:Video games scored by MITCHELL Project Music Team Category:Video games developed in Japan